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10/13/2013

Economic Publications

Should we stake everything on the Asian consumer?

Panorama Country Risk - October 2013

This panorama contains a study on household consumption in Asia. In the face of the 2008-2009 global crisis, followed by the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone in 2011, Asian household consumption has been a source of relative resilience for the region’s economies.

Some of their activity sectors have actually suffered very little. Many analysts place great hopes in this positive trend in Asian consumption, to the point where they can forget the unique aspects of consumer behaviour in the countries of the region, and especially the growing risks associated with household debt.

In this study we pose several questions:

How big is the rise in household consumption in this region?

Have Asian households taken on too much debt?

What are the specific consumer behaviour patterns in Asia?

Which sectors are benefitting most from this expansion of consumption?

Country Risk Assessments Changes

We also present, in this panorama, the latest adjustments to our country assessment (which measure the risk of company payment defaults in a given country) and an update to the country studies being currently under the spotlight, like India, Brazil, Kenya or Germany.